Big wintertime perch

Posted on 30 November 2012 by Philip

A 30 min drive from our hood we have “de Maasplassen” at our disposal, with 3000ha of fishable water. These lakes are created due to gravel extraction, mainly in the 20th century. The reason we don’t fish there a lot is because the lakes are very deep: up to 30 meters. Because of the depth, in combination with the large surface, you are lost quickly or you need to get very lucky if you fish without a fishfinder.

At “de Ronde Bleek” Vincent and I met Bob, a very all round fishing dude that re-discovered fly-fishing over the past 2 years. All his Carp rods are for sale now and he flies his fly a lot now. Next to that he knows the Maasplassen very well and has fished there a lot. Did I tell you he owns a FISHFINDER 🙂

Meet Bob, looking for fish on his fishfinder

So we made plans in our WhatsApp group “0031 let’ s fish”, to hit the water on Wednesday. Bob has a week off from work this week and he’s fishing a lot with the bellyboat. On Tuesday Bob explored several lakes and suggested the lake ” Hattenboer” to us for Wednesday. There is a small marina where he had some action and he spotted a lot of bait fish on his fishfinder. Fishing 2.0 with a scout is nice, thanks Bob!

Lots of bait fish

In the morning Ricardo and Vincent came to pick me up, the mobster style trunk was filled for 90 % with gear and my 3 bags had to go in there somehow. Finally we hit the road and before we knew it we missed the exit on the highway. We where only focusing on scoring snacks at the next gas station. Bob was WhattsApping us informing us that he had arrived on the spot and it’s looking very fishy.

Not much later we arrived at the spot where Bob was all ready geared up. Quickly we inflated our bellyboats and fixed up our rods with some DI7 heavy-sinklines and hit the water. Bob in front and giving us good info from the fishfinder so we knew how deep to fish. With 4 people it is easy to explore a big space, so we split up over the water. Vincent and Ricardo teamed and went on their way.

We paddled in a docking street with docks on each side where recreation boats are laying. Some docks are empty, this is always a hotspot because the fish like it and the chance you hookup a boat or the docks is big. So precision casting with obstacles for me is more fun than blindcasting. After one hour Bob had to pee so he paddled to a corner of a dock and did his job. During this hand warming activity he looked at his fishfinder and saw some fish:-) After he was done he paddled back and was feeding line to sink, so the fly went down. He started to strip and halfway the line a big Perch attacked his fly and gave a nice fight on his #8 rod.

First fish of the day

After Bob’s first catch we teamed up again, looking for more fish. It didn’t take long before we found more perch. Vincent hooked up with a nice winter perch.

Bob and Vincent looking for more fish

Vincent with a good sized winter perch

Close-up

Not long after Vincent’s fish, Bob found another big school of bait fish. Bob let his fly sink a little bit, and he got a good take. Another big perch!

Bob with another beauty

Close-up of Bob’s beauty

Bob kissing his beauty goodbye

Due to the winter temperatures, we were really starting go get very cold toes. So after 3 hours of fishing we paddled back to our cars. Next time we’ll be back with thicker socks!! (and hopefully more fishfinders 😉 )